The Archimage's Fourth Daughter

by Lyndon Hardy

  More turns and more tableaus followed. Each with a chorus of tiny robots caroling over and over the same simple melody. Finally, the cart emerged back into the intense sunlight, and Maurice followed Randor scrambling to exit.

  Without pause, Randor led him into another large room, this one floored with sheets of shiny metal. Smaller carts without wheels sat on the smooth surface. Behind each was a harnessed imp with his slender hands grasping handles and bending forward getting ready to push. A cat o’ nine tails hung from a mechanism arching to a forward compartment containing two seats. It dangled over a back scarred and oozing ichor.

  Most of the other cars were already filled, and Randor ran to one remaining, motioning Maurice to follow. They sat on low, shallowly cushioned chairs and buckled thick belts about their waists. A klaxon sounded, and the carts began moving. Randor turned a steering wheel hard to one side to disengage. The imp behind them grunted from the effort, but soon they were circuiting around the floor with increasing speed.

  Then a second car crashed into the side near where Maurice and Randor were sitting. Their heads whipsawed from the impact, and the tribunal roared with laughter. He pivoted the car swiftly to the side and then reached the handle dangling on his right and pulled. The imp behind cried with a burst of pain as the whips hit his bare back. He applied a burst of speed, and Randor crashed the car into another who had appeared directly ahead.

  The klaxon sounded again, and all of the cars immediately were abandoned. “Ah, I needed that,” Randor said. “A perfect tonic. Not a single stray thought broke through on the entire journey. Definitely better than the express.”

  Maurice tried to make sense of what he was experiencing, but he could not. There was no time to sit and ponder. The tribunal ushered him into another tower, this one with a façade much like the others, but somehow with a little more attention to style and repeated motifs. Guard imps in gaudy tunics and holding halberds at attention bowed as they passed. Soon they entered a room with large doors and a high ceiling and stood in front of a long, curved dais bowing out in front of them. Behind were three imposing high back chairs. Two were occupied.

  “This is most annoying,” one of the two seated tribunals said. “Our regularly scheduled quarterly meetings I can manage to prepare for — show something before that I have forgotten, then something new when I return to my chambers.”

  “I understand your discontent,” Randor said. “I feel it as well. But there is no other choice but to deal with this before it gets out of hand.” He pointed toward Maurice. “I have brought a native from Earth with me. We meet to decide his fate.”

  “Earth? You told us you had taken care of that problem a long time ago,” the first tribunal persisted. “Handed the task off to others who do not believe as do we, the Faithful.”

  Randor did not bother to rebut. “He has things to say you might find interesting,” he said.

  “Very well,” the second tribunal said. “Archivists, to your stations.”

  Two imps immediately spring up from where they had been resting along a sidewall. They had sat near a hearth containing unburned logs and colored paper dancing above in the imitation of a flame. One of the aroused demons began scribbling on some parchment with a long quill pen while the other squinted at Maurice and started sketching.

  Maurice pushed the sense of wonder aside. He had a chance to speak, he realized, and he should use it. From what little he could gather, novelty was something prized here. Was this an opportunity?

  “Buddha says,” Maurice paused a moment to be sure all attention was on him. The translation sounded an instant later, although the word for Buddha was severely mangled.

  “Buddha says,” he continued, “‘There are only two mistakes one can make on the road to truth: not going the whole way and not starting.’“

  “This is most excellent!” the second tribunal exclaimed. “Droll and original. Perfect for the sundown news today.” He turned to the other tribunal sitting beside him. “The sundowner has become so very stale, don’t you agree? There is only so much one can do to make the weather exciting.”

  “Unswath him,” the first said. “Give the artist something to work with.”

  Maurice snapped out of his awe of the strange surroundings. His life was at stake here. Two more imps appeared and began unwinding his protection.

  He began to resist, but then stopped as he remembered. ‘Do not learn how to react; learn how to respond,’ Buddha had said.

  Maurice held off the urge to take a deep breath and decided. He would have to endure the discomfort as long as he could stand it. “Educate me,” he said. “The one named Thaling. You say he is a Heretic. What was his crime?”

  There was silence for a moment, and then the first on the dais spoke again. “Simply put, he and his comrades dared to think.”

  “Rather than helping to create more distractions, more amusements to keep thoughts away,” the second chimed in, “they dared to try and answer questions that could not be.”

  “Yes,” continued the first. “Why is there evil in the world? Why are we here? What is our purpose?” He shook his head. “These questions cannot be decided. Our minds are too meager to contemplate such things. All that can come of such a waste of time is despair, life-snuffing despair.”

  “Buddha says, ‘He who walks in the eightfold noble path with unswerving determination is sure to reach Nirvana.’“

  “What noble path? What is Nirvana?”

  Maurice noticed the scribe writing furiously and his companion finish one sketch and start another. With his helmet off, the heat felt as if he had put his head in an oven. A wave of dizziness began to wash over him.

  “Buddha says, ‘We are shaped by our thoughts. We become what we think.’ Well, that is not a real quote, but perhaps it applies in this place anyway.”

  “And a wrap!” another voice sounded as Maurice sagged to his knees. “If we get started now, this will make this evening’s line up.”

  “I am not sure these words should be broadcast,” Randor said. “I meant this captive’s words to be for this chamber only. Something… something sophisticated ones such as yourselves could handle. They sound too much like what Thaling and the others were grasping for.”

  “We have been steadfast in our faithfulness for many orbs around our star,” the second dais member said. “Surely, we can withstand the babbles of an alien in a single news bite.”

  “By your leave,” the new speaker rattled his fetters. “I will get the crew working now on the presentation. And yes, I envision a landscape view for how the alien arrived here as well.” He smiled. “If all goes well, perhaps a reduction in the length of my sentence is a worthy consideration.”

  Unwanted Distractions

  THALING SQUINTED up at the sunrise. It felt good to be home again, to see the great orb begin to peek over the horizon like a beckoning god. As the darkness faded, he scanned the city in the distance, but saw no marshalling of troops. Evidently, Randor was not attacking immediately.

  His flock rose from their slumbers and formed the two precise lines from which they were to repel the tribunal’s attack when it did come. There was satisfaction in that. Even though it took harangue after harangue into the evening, eventually everyone understood. There would be no turning back. No option for a second exile.

  Thaling looked at the portal door next to him and then the makeshift setter he had fashioned on the Earth. The logical thing to do was to set both the near and far destinations to ‘Nowhere,’ make the doorway vanish and then destroy his makeshift setter. It was one thing to spout ‘the ship had been burned’ but harder to convince everyone of that when evidence of its presence still stood boldly on the plain.

  Destroy his setter, he pondered. Could he really do that? He ran one hand along its bumpy exterior. Probably the best piece of magic he had ever performed. Yes, magic, but because it was made of scrap parts, unlike most products of the craft, it was quite fragile. Destroying it would be easy. A single jo
lt could shatter it into pieces.

  But sending the portal to Nowhere and then smashing the setter to the ground now, he could not. Despite his rage for revenge, despite his desire to see Randor beg for mercy before his throat met a dagger’s blade… the outcome of every battle could never be known precisely before it played out. Suppose his flock, even after all this time in the horrible prison on Earth, still did not have the will to stand and slash when comrades on either side had already been slain or lowered their daggers in surrender.

  No, if everything failed, if all of this adventure came to naught, Thaling knew he would use the portal to escape… escape back to Earth or perhaps to some other orb that could become a new home.

  He thrust the thoughts aside. Enough of that. There was no profit in dwelling on a defeat that might not, will not, occur. He was the middle brother, after all — not endowed with an intrinsic lust for battle like Angus, nor as patient and contemplating as was Dinton. They had both staked claims on what they would be, and he, himself, was left with little else in between. The peacemaker, the one who would calm the emotions on either side when it became necessary, but one who had no other use whatsoever.

  He tried to stoke the fire of his revenge for his mate, but this morning it was not as intense as the day before. Why did he not imagine the thrill of skewering Randor, feed his boldness, make himself stand taller to face his destiny?

  It was because Randor had changed, he decided at last. True, the tribunal looked the same physically as he was remembered, but his manner was quite different. Except for the one bit of emotion when expounding on the righteousness of his beliefs, he was calm, almost detached. He spoke of slaughter to Thaling’s face, but without emotion, no savoring of the task. Instead, his adversary seemed… annoyed or irritated. The return of the Heretics was like an itching fleabite and had to be handled before pursuing the rest of the calendar for the day.

  In the distance, a flick of motion at the tower gates caught Thaling’s eye. No more introspection. This was it! This was it at last! He made a series of hand signals his lieutenants passed on to those under their immediate command. The two lines spanning the flat ground rose to attention and placed their hands on the dagger hilts at their sides.

  But as Thaling resumed his watch, he saw not an outpouring of many armed opponents ready to fight but a single wagon, larger than the one Randor had used the day before to transport the Earth native to and from the city.

  As it drew closer, he could see the vehicle contained one shackled wizard and five imps the master controlled — five small demons plus the two larger ones who pulled the wagon forward.

  The vehicle steered toward Thaling and came to a halt directly before him.

  “Where is the one who is the Buddha?” the wizard asked. “The news bite yesterday evening was a hit. We have been tasked to make a documentary to be aired this evening as a follow up.”

  Thaling stared back at the city. “What about Randor?”

  The wizard shrugged. “Rounding up warriors or some such,” he said. “I doubt he will be seen here today. But there is little time for idle chatter. Where is the Buddha? We have to record more and improve the quality of the art.”

  Thaling motioned toward the dessert building. “He is confined there, but only loosely. After he can stand the cold no longer, we let him emerge and take in the sun. Then when that, in turn, becomes too unbearable, he retires back inside.

  “Show us,” the wizard said.

  Thaling did not like the hint of command in the wizard’s voice, but he stowed the setter into a large pouch on his side and motioned the craftmaster to follow.

  THALING TUGGED open the door and entered the freezer. Maurice had his helmet off and was sampling one of the desserts. The earthling looked up, startled.

  “Cherryblossom,” the wizard commanded. “Start making sketches. The one without the helmet is something we can use right after the commercial break. And this time get enough detail so the final result will pop off the page.”

  “I prefer to be known as ‘The Crimson Avenger,’“ Cherryblossom said.

  “I use the name your teammates call you,” the wizard said. “How many times do we have to keep going over this?”

  “But it is derogatory,” Cherryblossom protested.

  “Do as I say,” the wizard said. “Only four more months of this, and I can be free,” he muttered aside to Thaling. “If I had only known how bad this would be…”

  “Sweetplum,” he resumed his commanding tone. “Start on the title credits. The first will be… The first will be ‘The Buddha Says.’ Then the shot with the helmet on, cleaned up from yesterday. Then… then, what was it he said to the tribunal?”

  “There are only two mistakes, one — ”

  “Right,” the wizard cut him off. “Flash that one next, then we will do another pose. Alternate the quotes and the poses, one after the other.”

  “What is all this?” Maurice asked. “Poses?”

  “You’re a star,” the wizard said. “A hot new property. Everyone was ready for it. Not one of the reruns was working anymore. Thoughts were beginning to crop up. People were thinking rather than letting the entertainment pour in to placid minds.”

  “But poses?”

  “I don’t know. Just do something with your limbs. Arms outstretched and palms turned inward. Arms raised high. For a negative, wave your hands back and forth across your chest. That sort of thing.”

  “Like this?” Maurice followed the first of the wizard’s instructions.

  “Exactly. But hold it there. Give Cherryblossom a chance. He’s good but not fast.”

  “How long?”

  “He’ll tell you when to move to the next. And while were waiting, say some more of that way out stuff.”

  Maurice frowned. “You mean like, Buddha says ‘Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future; concentrate the mind on the present moment’.”

  “Exactly. Keep them coming. We have two thousand heartbeats of prime time to fill up.”

  A Star is Born

  MAURICE’S FINGERS cramped. The cold was now unbearable. A true Buddhist should be able to withstand it, but he could not. He put away his phone containing the long text he was composing for Briana. Time to go outside and warm the air trapped by his swathing. The events of the previous evening had been puzzling at first, but eventually he figured out what was happening. The aliens had some primitive form of television — no motion, more like a slide show — a series of intermingled text and static images.

  He pushed opened the door and was startled by what he saw. Thaling’s followers stood in more or less straight lines as they had before. But beyond them and closer to the city were thousands more of the aliens milling about.

  When the crowd caught sight of him, almost in unison, they roared, “The Buddha. It is the Buddha.”

  Maurice frowned. “I am not the Buddha,” he shouted back.

  “I am not the Buddha,” repeated an imp standing beside the door. He was gnarled and gangly like most of his kind but was distinguished by a large and robust chest, seemingly out of place on its spindly legs. Its voice was loud, booming loud, loud enough to pierce Maurice’s helmet and still hurt his ears.

  “I am not the Buddha,” the crowd echoed, this time in complete synchrony. Many knelt on their knees, extended their arms, and bowed in Maurice’s direction.

  One of the smaller demons he thought he recognized from the day before trotted up to explain. “Another smash hit,” he said. “Ratings through the roof. New and exotic. Scratches an itch that has been festering for years. No more delays. This is reality, baby. We are going live.”

  A hush like that found in a lifeless desert fell over the field. Even Thaling’s minions had turned to watch, waiting for Maurice to say more.

  Maurice thought for a moment and then began with the first thing popping into his mind. “Buddha says ‘When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.’“

  The stentorian imp
 — what else would you call it — repeated the words out over the crowd.

  “The Buddha. It is the Buddha,” the assemblage responded.

  Maurice looked again at Thaling’s followers and compared their number to the larger mass of others before him. He remembered the shaman on Bagana and how receptive he was to the pull of the great one’s words. Yes, there was opportunity here.

  “The first noble truth — life is frustrating and painful,” Maurice said. “The second — suffering has a cause. The third, that the cause of suffering can be ended. The fourth is that there is a path, a way to end the cause of suffering.”

  “The Buddha. It is the Buddha,” the crowd responded,

  The tension in Thaling’s troops melted away. Everyone was watching and listening, straining to hear what he would say next. Definitely, now was his chance.

  He stepped away from the doorway, and no one forced him back. He took two more long strides, and no one rushed forward to stop his motion. He eyed the portal door shimmering in the near distance. Only Thaling was standing near it. Only the stentorian imp followed him, and the imp remained a respectable distance behind.

  Maurice continued quoting. If he could keep this up long enough, he could reach the flock leader, push him aside and race through the portal back to the Earth.

  “Buddha says ‘We are what we think.’“ he called out. “‘No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.’ He felt he was getting the rhythm of it now and felt a growing confidence to improvise. “Trying to push aside fear and despair by amusements and distractions is a futile effort. One must meditate. Seek wisdom through thought, not push it away.”

  Maurice stumbled on a rock underfoot and brushed against one of Thaling’s warriors. The alien shrieked in ecstasy and fell to the ground. “The Buddha. He encourages thought. Games and puzzles are worthwhile.”

  “Not necessarily that,” Maurice said. “Each of us must find our own way along the path.